This Calming GIF Can Help You Handle Stress

Breathing is clearly important (understatement of the century). Yes, it's a key part of the whole staying-alive thing, but it can also help you chill out in this increasingly busy, stressful world. So busy and stressful, in fact, that it often seems impossible to carve out a few minutes every day for meditation. As always, the internet comes to the rescue. A mindfulness GIF is making the digital rounds because it features a super simple breathing exercise that can help you calm down ASAP.

The GIF is mesmerizing. It starts out as a flat line that turns into a triangle, which is then enveloped by a square. New shapes continue to build on the old ones, eventually turning into an octagon before it all collapses in on itself to start the routine over again. The idea is to breathe in as the shapes expand, then out as they fold down (or vice-versa), for about five seconds each.

It's kind of mind-blowing that the human body is programmed to breathe without us even thinking about it. But because it's such a naturally ingrained mechanism, it's easy to lose track of how your breathing could make a stressful situation worse. "When it comes to anxiety, one major problem is the tendency to breathe in shorter, shallow breaths, versus deep breathing," Christina Hibbert, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist and author of 8 Keys To Mental Health Through Exercise, told MNN. "Deep breathing, which this image promotes, requires us to slow down, extend our inhale and exhale, and bring more oxygen to our brain and body. This can help calm and relax us."

Better yet, this GIF creates an easy entry to mindfulness, which is mainly about focusing on the here and now. "When we're anxious, we are usually thinking about anything but the present moment. Breathing with this image forces us to focus on what's happening right now—the breath—and that takes us out of our head and our worries," says Hibbert. Ready to have a calmer day? Check out the popular Tumblr post getting attention—over 67,000 notes!—below.